Saturday, March 01, 2008

Here's a quick wrap-up from the past two weeks posts...

Everyone's probably already seen Star Wars right? Well even if you have, you must watch this video of a preschooler explaining the finer points of Star Wars. It's just too cute and too " geek-tonic " not to post Found via Geek Parenting & Wired

Shortly after it's debut, the SageTV HD Extender that I reviewed this past December sold out. I don't know how many people purchased them in December, but based on the number of forum members commenting at the SageTV forums I'm guessing it was a lot. Today, the SageTV HD Extenders…

If you've been following the Nintendo Wii news you might already know that some inventive folks have come up with a way to allow homebrew games as well as emulators on the Nintendo Wii using a copy of Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess game.

Let's say I win the lottery. Not just a little jackpot, but a really big one. Well if that happens, this is the home theater I might want to put in my mansion. It's cost is about $6 Million and includes a gigantic, Snowmatte laboratory-grade screen, Sony ultra-high-resolution…

Mp3Tag , my favorite MP3 tagging application released an update to version 2.4 this past Friday. This latest update brings the following A completely redesigned tag sources dialog New action types (for exporting and importing) Loading and saving of column configurations and selection state of…

One of the most popular features for most HTPC users that you can't do with a cable-box DVR or Tivo is commercial detection and skipping. It is this one feature alone that helped me convince my family that connecting our computer to our Television was a good idea.

If you've ever used the myFairTunes or QTFairTunes programs to strip DRM from Apple's FairPlay DRM or Windows Media DRM, then you're probably familiar with the Hymn Project Web site. This past week, the site received a cease and desist letter demanding that all downloads be removed…

I remember getting excited every time I got a new Sharper Image catalog in the mail as a kid. The inner gadget geek in me always dreamed of owning those too-expensive, but too-cool gadgets that Sharper Image always hawked. Well today the retailer filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection citing…

I've updated the " writers strike update" TV list with all of the latest post-strike updates. All of the major TV networks have released their revised, winter/spring 2008 Television schedules and there is plenty of good news for you TV addicts.

If you are like me you have a large collection of MP3 music files on your hard drive. Some of my MP3's were converted from places like iTunes and Amazon, while others were ripped from my CD collection and others came from all over the place.

Friday, February 29, 2008

Friday is here finally! Here's a quick review of some excellent articles/stories I've been reading this week.

iPhone Vibrate First, Ring Second - Kevin Tofel at one of my favorite blog's jkOnTheRun, has a nifty way of making a ringtone for your iPhone that does the vibrate first, then ring.

iPhone 2.0 3G and Enterprise Friendly?Jason Unger talks about the next version of the iPhone that is rumored to be coming by mid-year. For me to bite, it needs to be 3G and include exchange support among other things. Even though I drool over the iPhone every time I see one, it just won't work for me if my IT group doesn't support it.

ZatzNotFunny! - Speaking of ZNF, be sure and check out the new look at the Zatz Not Funny! weblog. Dave Zatz has updated the theme and I like the look. I have a fairly major re-work of this geektonic blog in the works for sometime this summer so I've been watching the ZNF changes closely. In case you didn't know, many of the articles I write for Geek Tonic are syndicated over at ZNF and there is a lot of excellent content from Dave, Mari and Davis there as well so be sure and add that blog to your must read list!

iTunes #2 Music Retailer in U.S. - In another "sign of the times" for the music industry, Apple announced this week that the iTunes Store is the Number 2 music retailer in the U.S. second to Walmart. iTunes passed up Best Buy based on the latest market research data from NPD. Now if Apple doesn't hurry up and make all of their music DRM-free, I'll probably start using Amazon MP3 for all of my music needs.

HBO launches YouTube Channel - HBO has been moving several episodes to YouTube recently and now has a deal with YouTube to create an HBO channel online. There's already a HBO/YouTube site live with episodes of In Treatment, The Wire, Entourage, Flight of the Conchords, Extras, Stand Up Comedy, Def Comedy Jam, Real Time with Bill Maher, Real Sports and Habla y Habla. HBO plans to use this YouTube channel to get more exposure and bring in new subscribers to their premium cable channel. I plan to use this with my SageTV Online Video function that allows me to watch online videos from places like YouTube using my remote and viewing on my living room TV. via tvsquad

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Everyone's probably already seen Star Wars right? Well even if you have, you must watch this video of a preschooler explaining the finer points of Star Wars. It's just too cute and too "geek-tonic" not to post

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Shortly after it's debut, the SageTV HD Extender that I reviewed this past December sold out. I don't know how many people purchased them in December, but based on the number of forum members commenting at the SageTV forums I'm guessing it was a lot. Today, the SageTV HD Extenders are back in stock. You can purchase the extender by itself for $199.95 plus shipping or as a bundle that includes the extender and a copy of the Windows, SageTV Media Center software for $249.95 ($29.95 savings).

This new batch of HD Extenders include the new faceplates that solved the IR problems some users were experiencing so the only significant issue has been solved and these units should be some of the best HTPC extenders on the market.

I'm very tempted to buy one for myself. I really liked the review unit when I tested it in December (gave it away via ZNF) so it's going to be difficult to resist. Maybe the wife wouldn't notice :) (except she reads this blog too). UPDATE: COULDN'T RESIST - I BOUGHT ONE - SHELLY, I USED MY BIRTHDAY CASH I PROMISE :)

If you've been following the Nintendo Wii news you might already know that some inventive folks have come up with a way to allow homebrew games as well as emulators on the Nintendo Wii using a copy of Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess game.

The Twilight hack isn't the easiest thing to do and I haven't tried it myself, but here's a video of a guy running a homebrew version of Tetris on his system after "installing" the Twilight Hack.

Pretty nifty - especially when you realize this opens up the Wii world to free emulator games and probably more. Here's what has been released via the Hack so far:

Dear Customer, Nintendo would like to inform you that a Wii Menu update is now available. Select the Update button on the right to update your Wii Console. From this version of the Wii Menu onwards, Wii System Update will be displayed in the Disc Channel when you insert a Wii Disc that contains an update for the Wii Menu or for a Channel on the Wii Menu.If the update contained on the Disc is not necessary for your Wii console, the Disc Channel will be displayed normally. Note: if you have already updated your Wii console since 26 February 2008, you do not need to update again. Nintendo

There was speculation that this updated would break the hack, but there has been multiple confirmations that it does not. Looks like the update is to allow you to check Wi-Fi rankings of other people with Wii's - such as for the upcoming Mario Kart game.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Let's say I win the lottery. Not just a little jackpot, but a really big one. Well if that happens, this is the home theater I might want to put in my mansion. It's cost is about $6 Million and includes a gigantic, Snowmatte laboratory-grade screen, Sony ultra-high-resolution (4,096-by-2,160) SRX-S110 digital projector, a 8.8-channel audio system with THREE center-channel speakers, SIXTEEN 18-inch Snell Subs and the list goes on and on. In the end the setup powers 11,315 high-quality watts in the room designed for the sole purpose of being the ultimate home theater. Is it overkill? Heck yes it is, but hey who's going to judge you when its your cash right?

Sunday, February 24, 2008

One of the most popular features for most HTPC users that you can't do with a cable-box DVR or Tivo is commercial detection and skipping. It is this one feature alone that helped me convince my family that connecting our computer to our Television was a good idea.
Why such a big deal? Imagine you are viewing one of your pre-recorded shows from an hour before and while viewing you get to an annoying commercial. With a normal DVR you either watch the commercial or you hit the fast-forward button to slowly move over the commercial and then watch for the end of the commercial so you know when to hit the play button.
With HTPC, commercial-detection you just hit the "skip" button on your remote and it moves to the very end of the commercial just like that. I'm talking about commercial detection and skipping - after a few years of using a Home Theater PC, commercial skip is a requirement for TV viewing in my house. Read on & I'll show you how it works on an HTPC and how to set it up.COMMERCIAL SKIPPING WITH SAGETVSageTV is an excellent HTPC software program that transforms your home computer into a powerful, supercharged DVR with many additional features than you would find with your cable or satellite box DVR or even your TIVO. Commercial detection and skipping isn't built-in to SageTV, but is free and easy to set up. NOTE: skipping based on a set time such as 30 seconds is built in to SageTV. SageTV's Website
We rarely watch commercials any more (except for during sports such as the superbowl) because you can install an add-on that analyzes your recorded shows and marks the start and end point of most commercials so you can quickly skip over the commercials and go straight to the content.
Here's how it works once installed. When you hit the play button on your remote control a status bar appears at the bottom of the television screen like this one:
You'll note the dark green portions of the status bar, these are the commercials that were detected. When you hit the skip button on your remote control (my skip button is mapped to the "right" button on my remote control) it will skip to the next start or end point of the next commercial. You can skip back the same way with the back button as well. It works much like the chapters in DVD's with the start and end points of each commercial acting as the chapter marks.
To give you an idea of how commercial skipping works, check out this very-short screencast I made while viewing a SageTV-recorded television show:

In the video I press the play button on my remote to show you the status bar during playback of a show. Then the show gets to a commercial - at this point I hit the skip commercial button and it goes to the end point of that commercial. If for some reason the commercial detection was off a little, I can do a rewind or fast forward a few seconds to get to the correct spot.

HOW TO INSTALL COMMERCIAL DETECTION IN SAGETV
There are two or three steps to installing commercial detection in SageTV. In all it should take about 5 minutes to set up:
1. Commercial Detection Program
First you need to choose one of the commercial detection programs. The two available are the free, ComSkip program and the $19.98 ShowAnalyzer program. Both are used by SageTV users and everyone has their favorites. Comskip can run while a show is recording while ShowAnalyzer can integrate with the Webserver (web-based guide add-on) to customize commercial scans.

2. File Monitor Program
Next, you need a program to monitor your show recordings directory for new recordings. As soon as a new recording appears in the directory(s) the file monitor program runs your ComSkip (or ShowAnalyzer) program to mark those commercials. There are two different programs that will do this for you and both are free. The first one is ComSkip Monitor and the second one is DirMon.

ComSkip Monitor - Used with ComSkip. This program is a little less configurable than DirMon, but it's extremely easy to set up.

Unzip ComskipMonitor.zip into the directory of your choice. I put it in "SageTV\SageTV\" directory so it gets backed up when I back up my SageTV installs, but you can put it anywhere on the SageTV PC.

Go to the ComskipMonitor directory and run setup.bat (run as administrator)

The Comskip Monitor walks you through the setup where you select your recorded shows directories,Choose the video file types by inputting their file extensions such as mpg etc.There are several further configuration options that the setup configuration walks you through.

Once you've completed the configuration wizard, and click "Finish" and close the window.

3. ComSkip Playback Support
Finally, SageTV needs to have the ability to "recognize" the special txt or edl files that were generated by ComSkip to mark the commercials. You don't need this if you are using the SageMC skin since it is built-in to the SageMC skin itself. If you aren't using SageMC, you need to download the ComSkip Playback Import HERE and then follow these steps:

Unzip the ComSkip Playback Import program into SageTV. The df_sageutils.jar goes in the "SageTv\SageTV\Jars\" directory. All other files from the zip should be placed in the "SageTv\SageTV\STVs\SageTV3\" directory.

SETTINGS FOR COMSKIP
Once everything is installed you can now modify the settings in the default SageTV STV under Detailed Setup>ComSkip Playback Options.
If you're using SageMC, the option page is similar to the standard STV options page. The main option you can adjust is the Commercial Auto Skip. Switch this to enabled and it will automatically skip any detected commercials without ever touching the remote.
You're done. Go enjoy your HTPC shows commercial-free!